Many successful companies use urgency as a known factor to help them win sales. Urgency is a form of persuasion that works very well when combined with promotional offers. It creates an anxiety within the buyer which makes them feel that they might lose a benefit if they don’t act immediately.

For this reason, offers with words like “Limited Time” attached to them tend to do better than offers with no time frame or urgency factor attached to them. Urgency offers are generally concerned with or focused on time but are often combined with scarcity (only a few left) and availability (chance, opportunity.) Home shopping network sites like QVC use this to their advantage all the time and it’s one of the primary reasons they move product as fast as they do (not to mention the large audience they reach.)

QVC has the “today’s special value”, they have the countdown clock, they have the number sold and constantly push the number remaining in their broadcasts. They do it well and they are a good example of how to do it right.

So how do you add urgency to your sales promotions? Here are a few common words and methods used to express urgency.

Common words used to express urgency

LIMITED TIME
ONLY
TODAY
HURRY
ACT NOW
RUSH
LAST CHANCE
DEADLINE
FINAL CLOSE-OUT
GOING OUT-OF-BUSINESS
ONE DAY ONLY
NEVER AGAIN
CLEARANCE
DON’T DELAY
NOW OR NEVER
DON’T MISS OUT
OFFER EXPIRES
ONCE IN A LIFETIME
PROMPTNESS BONUS
PRICES GOING UP

Nonverbal ways to express urgency

Ticking clocks
Countdowns (7,6,5,4,3 …)

So here I’ve listed a few methods of creating urgency. Don’t overuse it, but do consider using it during one of your next promotions. Compare the difference between your standard promotion and one that utilizes urgency. I think you’ll be pleased with the results.